Black Friday’s round-the-clock sales apparently were just a warm-up for the homestretch of the holiday season, as several big national retailers will open their doors this weekend and keep them open straight through Christmas Eve.

In an unusually short shopping season and with just five days till Christmas, stores are pulling out all the stops. “It’s crunch time,” said Jamie Gutfreund, chief strategy officer at The Intelligence Group, a business research firm.

For the first time, Kohl’s will stay open 108 hours in the push toward the big day — starting at 6 a.m. Friday, as “an added convenience to shoppers,” said spokeswoman Jackie Kacala. And some Macy’s stores — though not in Southern California — are logging 107 hours of nonstop sales before closing at 6 p.m. Christmas Eve.

Toys R Us, one company that helped pioneer extended holiday hours, is offering 87 consecutive hours of shopping — Saturday 6 a.m. through 9 p.m. Christmas Eve. The retailer’s flagship store in New York’s Times Square has been open since 8 a.m. Dec. 1 and will keep things running for 566 hours — the store’s longest stretch of uninterrupted shopping.

“It’s been an escalating progression,” Gutfreund said. “Ten years ago it would have been, ‘Oh, my God!’ but now it seems to be not such a leap. It’s all about the consumer now.”

The retail all-nighters actually started on Thanksgiving, when more stores than ever opened to lure customers away from the dinner table — and the attraction of online shopping — and into the malls for sales that used to start on Black Friday. Businesses hope the extended hours will make up for the six days they lost this season: Thanksgiving fell late this year, leaving just 26 days until Christmas and setting up the shortest holiday shopping season since 2002.

Many stores depend on the holidays for up to 40 percent of their annual sales, and chopping almost a week out of the season could cost about $1.5 billion in sales, according to a study by Adobe Digital Index.

“These final days are really important to the retailer,” said Vera Gibbons a financial analyst and spokeswoman for Capital One. “This is it. This is make it or break it.”

It’s not just the marathon hours that will feel like round two of Black Friday — stores will also dangle sales and promotions in front of consumers, many as good as or better than Thanksgiving. Toys R Us is offering 50 percent-off prices and buy-one-get-one deals, and Kohl’s is giving cash back on purchases. Target, which is advertising discounts of up to 60 percent, has extended its in-store pickup service for online orders to 2 p.m. Dec. 24.

Experts expect consumers will hit stores at every hour of the day and night until Christmas. While retailers have struggled with the shorter season, so, too, have shoppers struggled to find the time to buy gifts.

“The next (week) will be extremely hectic and busy, and you’ll see a huge ramp-up,” said Michael Niemira, chief economist and director of research at the International Council of Shopping Centers.

According to a survey by American Express done Dec. 6-8, about 21 percent of consumers hadn’t started their holiday shopping, and almost a quarter were only halfway finished.

The longer hours are also a response to growing demand from consumers to buy what, when and where they want, retail experts say. Many consumers, especially millennials, expect the same from brick-and-mortar stores that they get from online shopping, which is at their fingertips 24 hours a day.

“Everything is fluid,” Gutfreund said. ”If I could have extraordinary at a click of a button, I had better be given extraordinary in the store.”

Many of the shoppers expected to be out in the wee hours will be the usual procrastinators, experts say, but round-the-clock hours also give nurses, truck drivers and others who work night shifts some of their first shopping opportunities all season.

“Extended hours are a direct result of customer feedback,” said Macy’s spokeswoman Megan Pardo. “Our customers asked for more store hours in the day and night to shop, and we listened.”

But some analysts warn that hitting stores in the middle of the night when they’re tired and overwhelmed with just a few days left before Christmas, is a recipe for overspending.

“If you’re shopping at 4 a.m., people just discount it,” Gibbons said. “It’s like it’s not really happening. But it is — and when you get that bill, you’ll see it.”

And be warned: This is one tradition that’s probably here to stay.

“They’ve opened up Pandora’s box. How do you take it away?” Gutfreund said. “People will accept that this is business as usual.”

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